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Second Chance Index tracks what employers, banks and state laws actually say about people with criminal records. Every number here is counted from records checked against official sources and links to the records behind it. Cite it, embed it or download it, free.
The 2026 Second Chance Index
Every state, ranked. Every state, localized.
We scored all 51 on clearing a record, voting rights and where the felony line falls. Colorado ranks first with 84.5 of 100; Alabama, Alaska and Florida tie for last with 35. Each state has its own page with its rank, every point it earned and missed, a quote you can use and a card you can embed.
The full ranking and methodScores as CSVMap as an imageEmbed the map
Numbers you can cite
- 27of the 51 places we've checked let people with a felony conviction vote once they're out of prison, or never take the vote away (Washington, D.C., Maine and Vermont never do).Checked October 30, 2026.
- 13of them make some people take an extra step to vote again, or bar some people for good.Checked October 30, 2026.
- 22of the 135 large employers we track have publicly committed to hiring people with records; 93 haven't published any policy.Checked October 31, 2026.
- 10of all 50 states and D.C. automatically clear some convictions.Checked October 30, 2026.
- 12states set the line where theft becomes a felony below $1,000; the highest is $2,500 (Texas and Wisconsin).Checked October 29, 2026.
- 4checking accounts say on their own pages that they don't check ChexSystems or credit to open an account.Checked October 30, 2026.
How to cite us
Name Second Chance Index and link to the page the fact is on. Every page shows the date we last checked it, and has a “Cite this page” box with the citation written out. For example:
Second Chance Index, "Can you vote with a felony conviction?" https://secondchanceindex.com/voting-rights, checked October 30, 2026.
Dates to watch
Changes to the rules we track that take effect soon, each from a checked record:
- By November 1, 2026Oklahoma: Oklahoma's State Bureau of Investigation must open an online portal to request record sealing without a court petition. Oklahoma record clearing
- November 1, 2026Oklahoma: Oklahoma's rewritten rule on registering to vote again after a felony takes effect. Voting after a felony in Oklahoma
- November 4, 2026Federal: The Justice Department plans to open federal firearm-rights relief applications to the public, limited to the first 5,000 applicants. Gun rights restoration guide
- December 1, 2026Virginia: Virginia's expungement law for charges that didn't end in a conviction expands. Virginia record clearing
- By January 1, 2027Missouri: Missouri must start automatically expunging eligible drug possession and paraphernalia convictions. Missouri record clearing
Embed the state rankings
A map of every state's rank that stays current as we update states. Each state also has a ranking card made for local stories: pick a state and preview it.
Embed the voting rights map
A map of every state's rule, free to embed in a story or a resource page. It stays current as we update states, and the credit line under it links to the full table. There is also a map of which states clear records automatically, and answer cards for each state's voting and record-clearing rules and for each employer: choose one and preview it.
Preview the embed · Download the map as an image for print or newsletters
Download the data
Every dataset is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, as CSV for spreadsheets or JSON with every source. All downloads
How we check
Facts come from employers' and banks' own pages, state laws and court pages, and government agencies. Lists kept by advocacy groups and news coverage help us find things, but we cite the official page. A second reader checks each record before it goes up, every source is reopened weekly, and every change is listed on What changed (RSS). Our full methodology